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As a kid I remember being mortified walking into the living room and hearing my mother on the phone discussing my life with one of her friends. I cannot imagine having that feeling multiplied by potentially millions of strangers.
My mother used to do this too. She had zero concept of boundaries, and she and her friends all found my distress hilarious. We really need to start viewing children as actual people, albeit people at an incomplete level of development.
At one point in my early teens, I asked my mother to stop talking about my personal life to other people, especially when they did not ask about it. Nothing extreme triggered this. I just didn't like it. She accepted after one or two more times. It breaks my heart that these kidfluencers may not even be able to ask once.
Omg I thought I was the only one who had a mom like this! I walked in on my mom gossiping about my brother's "love" life (in his teens) and it shook me to the core. I felt so betrayed for him and lost all trust for her. So when it was my turn to start dating I didn't tell her anything which was an awful position to be in as a teenage girl. I also stop writing in my journals because she would read them so I had zero outlets for expressing myself
@@ShelbySteele23 Oh my.. that's awful. I'm so sorry she violated your privacy like that. I have similar experience with my mother and grandmother. Last one went as far as to say "children have no right to privacy" and she absolutely meant it. No wonder that her children (including my own mother) treated their children badly. There has to be a cycle breaker in the family, with whom the abuse stops. We are those cycle breakers, I believe 🧡
@@ShelbySteele23 My mom use to read my journal too and then would try to fish out of me more details without letting me know she did. However, I always knew when someone touched my stuff, even when they tried to put it back "exactly the same".
I once read a post of a 14/15 year old girl who whose mom was a “mommy blogger” & documented her whole life for the internet. Now that she was a teenager, she didn’t want that for herself or her little sister (who was still young). Obviously her mom guilt tripped her telling her that this is how they make a living for the whole family. The 14/15 year old girl resorted to getting a custom hoodie for her sister and herself that read “Do not film” in bold noticeable letters and the mom complained about it & it caused a huge fight between them. Now that she’s a bit older, she wants most of the content made as a child to be deleted and her mom is mortified. She’s trying to set boundaries but her mom is hellbent on not listening to her own children. Never thought we would have these types of situations.
Yup. And the teen will never get too see any of that money since RU-vid parents aren't made to hold savings from the child's earnings for the child specifically like Hollywood parents are
I’m an actor who regularly works with children on set. When I tell you the amount of RULES there are in terms of how long kids are allowed to work, Coogan Laws that requires a certain amount of money is kept in a trust for the child, the stalkers (yes) some of my younger costars have to deal with (the youngest was a 5 y o costar of mine, not famous but working actor, she had a grown man stalking her)- I absolutely cannot watch family channels. I’ll even skip past things that show unblurred kids faces. It just makes me too skeeved knowing what I know. Honestly, the whole family channel thing reminds me of how old Hollywood used to function with their young stars.
An adult-ass man was stalking a five year old little girl?! Jesus Christ! You have more restraint than me, I would have found where the bastard lived and castrated him
I honestly can’t imagine what’s gonna happen when these kids get older and become preteens and teens. And what their parents are going to start requesting/requiring of them “for the brand.” I think we’ll have a lot of situations like Jeanette McCurdy’s mom helping her develop an ED because she thought that was needed for her to be on TV
The sad thing is all those rules are there, because of the way they were abused before the rules were implemented, and they’re pretty new in the grand scheme of things. Which means that we won’t get rules for children/family influencers until years in the future.
I feel like there's a perception about child-free adults that they don't like children, and while that may be true for some, I feel like most care a great deal about children which is part of why they came to the decision to not have them personally. I think a lot of child free adults I personally know are very caring and compassionate about the responsibility and weight of having children, and I think you very much exhibit these traits which is why I'm glad you're speaking on the issue. We need as many kind and nuanced voices as possible to navigate this sticky situation!
Several of my child-free friends made that decision because their family has medical issues that have devastated them...mental and physical. They rock as honorary aunties and uncles. Positive vibes from New Hampshire,remember to be kind to each other and yourself
But also some of us plain don't like kids, don't want kids and don't get any value personally from kids, ours or otherwise. But we still respect the dignity of human life.
I think the issue comes in when Chelsea uses the term “childfree by choice”. I am generously assuming she doesn’t know the history of that movement as it is historically anti-child. For years they had forums where they refer to people as “breeders” and complain about being “baby stalked” ( which is some kind of delusion that people with children will continue to follow you around until you acknowledge the cuteness of their child). They have historically used such endearing and family neutral lingo as: 'crotchgoblins', 'crotchdroppings' 'crotchfruit' , 'hellspawn', 'mombie' and many others. I am all for planning any kind of family you want - with or without children. I also 100% believe that people who don’t want children should not have children… But aligning yourself with CBC if you actually know where that term began being used on the internet …. is not a good look. Like I said… I am going to assume she is ignorant of their historic presence on the internet and assume she is only thinking in terms of the more recent usage of the term.
The problem is, a lot of childfree people DO hate children, openly and proudly, and will smugly bring it up any chance they get. Being childfree is a valid choice, but it does no good to anyone to No True Scotsman by distancing from that aspect of childfree subcultures and communities. The very fact that "I don't like children" is seen as a fair opinion rather than a disturbing dismissal of an entire class of human beings is more than enough evidence, never mind the ugly and demeaning - and often misogynistic - language that is used by some.
Great as usual, Chelsea. If I might add one thing: Child labor in mining towns was not a parenting choice to "build character," it was a matter of survival. The phrase "owe your soul to the company store" came from the fact that the same company that owned the mine that employed you also owned your house, the local general store, and sold you your mining equipment. Strikes were met with violence. Sending a child to pick discarded coal, to unload coal carts, or even into a mine was often necessary to put food on the table because wages were low, companies extorted workers, and families might find themselves in debt to the mining company if the primary breadwinner died on the job (a common occurrence). My family was deeply affected by this poverty and trauma. Brutal? Yes. But not a parenting choice.
I remember watching a documentary about life as a factory worker in Britain during the industrial revolution. Even very young children were expected to work all day. There was no school, and mothers were working the same long hours as father's, so there was no-one to watch the kids, plus you were paid starvation wages so everyone in the household needed to be earning if you wanted everyone in the household to not starve. There was an account of an occasion where a child of about six was crushed to death by the machinery. The foreman basically told the parents "sucks to be you. You got another kid at home? Get them here in the next hour and they can have the job, otherwise it'll go to someone else's kid." And that's why child labour laws were invented.
I nannied through the onset of Instagram when regular degular parents posted pics of their kids on Instagram bc they were just sharing authentically on a new platform and their kids were a huge part of their lives. But let me tell you: it’s really weird for a kid to hear their parents’ friend say something like “I saw you ate strawberries yesterday” because the kid is like, “how tf did you know I ate strawberries. You weren’t there” those moments keep happening and it causes kids confusion and anxiety. Brought on by social media before they even know what it is or use it themselves 🤯. I now admire people who keep their kids entirely offline and appreciate how difficult that might be in our online culture
I’m only 25 and barely use social media. When I got pregnant everyone was “so excited” to see pictures of my son. I just kept thinking how creepy it was that these people have access to my sons baby pictures and I barely talk to them. I have one photo of him up and it’s a birth photo of the back of his head in my arms. I was told how weird of a mom I was for sheltering him and I was like that’s totally fine with me. At least I know exactly who knows information about my child instead of some random woman in Korea knowing his every move
Interesting point. When my partner is out and about with one of the children they will often send me photos. Even when my child knows that their picture is being taken, they know the picture gets send to me and they often ask about the pictures they send me when they get home, it still confuses them when I start talking about the pictures before they do. I can imagine a complete stranger (to them) asking them about the things they did yesterday or last week being very scary.
Even as an adult it's weird having someone mention moments of your life to you. Everytime we have a gathering I have to tell my mom to not post me on her Facebook page because I want to enjoy the moment and not have to worry about which shots she has floating around of me. I no longer post on social media because I came to see that our photos end up everywhere and it's so creepy to think about random strangers seeing you.
Unfortunately, I think these very necessary laws regarding child labor on the internet will only come once the kids of today grow up and realize how wrong this all was
child stars like Alyson Stoner and Jennette McCurdy have come out with their experiences and it seems like at this point people are knowingly prioritizing profit over their child's well being ):
@@rhahavyb I think Alyson and Jennette's stories are a bit different though because they were a part of traditional media by being on TV shows as kids. There are at least child labor laws and regulations for that medium, and most people don't connect their experiences to the experiences of kids being exploited on social media because their pathway to stardom/profitability is so different.
RU-vid is 17 years old and some of the kids are probably in their 20s and 30s, so the realization you talk about may have already happened. But realizing it is not same as actually knowing what kind of laws and regulations, if any, are needed to curb this kind of things and actually going about making it happen. I give it another 5-10 years or so before something is done.
If I can give a shoutout to a youtuber who I think handles this delicate situation fantastically, it's Jessica Kellgren-Fozard. She began a career making content about being a woman with disabilities and disability rights. She needs to make money as a youtuber because before covid, her options for making money from home were limited, but she needed to because of her disabilities. Her content didn't initially have anything to do with children, but she then had a child and it became important to discuss being an adult parent who has disabilities because no one else is talking about it and it's such an important issue. She has never shown her son Rupert's face on camera, though she has shown his body and her content tends to focus on the experiences of raising a child when you, as an adult, have disabilities instead of giving away any super personal details about 11-month-old Rupert as a human being.
I think in one of their vacation blogs Rue's face *barely* peeked into frame in a mirror, but yeah, they've been quite studious in maintaining his outward privacy until he's old enough to consent.
@@tylerphuoc2653 Ah, I didn’t know that. I imagine it would be tricky to perfectly edit camera angles inside a Spanish villa with a pool with super reflective water and where the hotel staff clean the mirrors and windows to a perfect shine everyday. Lol
Thank you!!! I've been trying to articulate to my kids why I dislike "family channels". I haven't said that they can't watch them, but I have been honest about my discomfort that the kids have zero agency or consent in the situation. Their lives are out there for public consumption, forever. I'm going to have my kids watch your video. They are old enough to understand this in the way that you presented it.
I agree with this completely the only channel I know of that doesn’t show the her kid’s faces is Ninja mommy because they can’t consent. Also there was another channel which I can’t remember the name of but one of the daughters eventually had enough and started wearing a T-shirt saying “I don’t consent to be filmed” because the mother refused to stop filming her which is sad that the RU-vidr continued to do disregarding her children objections. For me family channel should be regulated by RU-vid so that children are not exploited!
Kids think it’s so cool to be ‘famous’ on RU-vid and go on all those cool trips RU-vid families go on, but they don’t realize these kids are pretty much unpaid workers with no breaks.
@@gracemullen8183 Uhm unpaid their lifestyle is being subsidized by the views!!! So what’s the difference between a child getting an allowance for chores and a child that has a RU-vid channel??
Just to add on, there is the additional issue that comes along when the child has one or more disabilities. Disclosure: I'm autistic, have ADHD, and I live in the US. There is a group of parents that use their platform to highlight their child's disability and some of their more destructive or unusual behavior. Some of these parents are highlighting things like meltdowns or medical procedures that I would think that most people wouldn't want plastered on the internet. This situation only amplifies the questions of consent when you have a child that has an intellectual disability or is non- or minimally verbal. There is also something called "The right of nondisclosure" which is the right for any person to not disclose that they have a disability, most often applied to the workplace as an adult. If their parent has the fact that the child has one or more disabilities plastered all over the internet, does that child still have the right of nondisclosure in any meaningful sense?
Yes! This is such a good point. I see a lot of parents on TikTok sharing tons of info and videos about their sick or disabled children. I understand some do it to find a community or to bring awareness about their child’s rare condition. However, what is the limit? If I child is unaware of all their information being shared due to their age or disability does that mean their parents can share whatever they want? Do the parents have to allocate a portion of their earnings from social media to their education and long term care? I could go on and on but the only thing I can do for now is avoid this type of content and try to bring awareness of the fact that there should be regulations or limits put in place in order to preserve the child’s right to privacy. And to your point everything you put in the internet is there forever so 10-20 years down the road this kid is applying for a job and the company googles them and sees all this information about their condition or disability or even videos of a tantrum at target (because I’ve seen a ton of these) it’s going to put everyone in a very uncomfortable situation and that child might loose their opportunity of getting this job or is possibly going to be unfairly judged by their peers.
This! I notice it lot in the diabetes community too. A lot of really personal medical information being posted by parents about "our" diabetes. It terrifies me!
Great point, I hadn't really thought about that. Considering that a future employer and the insurance agency they use will be happy to pass on those children for employment due to having access to all of their medical information and disabilities.
Yes! I commented about a similar thing but yeah if all your information is plastered on the internet, potential employers (or teachers or friends or romantic partners or anyone else) can Google you and find out a ton of your private information. Even as an adult it can be really difficult to know when to share things like that but if your parents put it all out there then you don't have a choice. I also worry about the potential for bullying.
I am so glad to see how many prominent influencers are shying away from sharing content involving their children now! So much better to be safe than sorry! Such an insightful video as always Chelsea!
When it's so pervasive in our lives, it's hard to remember that we as a society are very new at the internet and, therefore, really bad at it. Conversations like this are so important to make the internet a safer, healthier, and more enjoyable place for everyone. Thank you!
Also since it's a new thing, we are yet to understand and know the long term consequences that this has on the lives of these kids. I just hope they don't end up like many child stars turning to addictions and stuff :(
It always blows my mind when someone posted a picture of their child in a vulnerable moment. Why was their first instinct to grab their camera? On a related note, you mentioned whether it's labor when children are playing in the background, doing a tiktok dance, etc. It reminded me of why we have the Coogan Law, which requires a certain portion of the child's income to be set aside for them until they reach adulthood. It's named after child actor Jackie Coogan, who grew up to discover that his mother had blown his earnings on fur coats and jewelry. Her excuse was "Jackie enjoyed himself and simply thought he was playing before the camera".
I don’t think you need to be a parent to understand that exploiting your underaged kids for profit is not great. Especially when doing so means exposing them to millions of strangers online and refusing to let them have any privacy to grow up in peace.
I agree, child labor shouldn't be something only parents can talk about. We all were children at one point in our lives and know how it felt. I think I'm just as qualified as any parent to say that exploiting children isn't good or that kids have a right to privacy as well. They can't consent so their life shouldn't be shared. It's that simple to me. I don't even share pictures of my adult friends without first asking and in general I post very little because of privacy.
As someone who grew up in a time where parents hitting their kids as discipline was normal, it's really funny that they think a child's consent is unconditional just because they said yes to the person who literally feeds them and puts a roof over their heads and who is in charge of whether they get privileges like screentime.
Yes! Children are children and even if they consent, they do not understand what they are consenting to. It’s the parent’s job to shield them from harm. The internet is very harmful and dangerous for children. They should not be shown.
My brother and sister in law have very consciously not posted images of their daughters online, something I also intend to do as a parent. I'm so grateful I got to go through puberty and my youth when the internet was young and less of a dumpster fire. Giving a kid a blank slate on the internet before they choose to use the internet is one of the best things you can give them IMO
My sister and her husband also made a very conscious choice to not have public images of their kiddos. I'm glad, as someone who will be having kids later or not at all, that my family are mapping healthy childhoods ahead of time.
We dont post our children for the same reason, nor do we allow preschool to post content of them (which came with 2 shocks in itself: the fact that schools do post content these days, and tbe fact that we are the only one not signing the form ). Our reasoning is letting them to decide what they want to share when we feel they are old enough to make that decision. But what is most peoples first assumption: are you that afraid of pedophiles? :D
There's videos where kids discuss how uncomfortable this makes them. I think DW or some other major outlet posted it? Maybe PBS? Anyway kids KNOW it's weird much younger than we probably did and that's INTENSE. I think we need sensible laws NOW and not later.
I've followed TFD for many years now and love the evolution of their videos from basics about budgeting/work to these deep dives into the ethical ramifications of using your children to make money online. This is beautifully structured, engaging, and thought-provoking. I know there will be blow-back for going into this topic, but I haven't really thought about it before and now I feel like my eyes have been opened to this crazy and potentially harmful industry. THANK YOU!! (also, wikifeet, wtf???)
I remember clearly my parents would always mention and even show a picture of me I hated. I was 3 or 4, at a preschool recital, covering my face with my skirt ( I was very shy!) without realizing I was then showing my panties. I was so embarrassed by that picture, they knew, and they were constantly minimizing it and showing it to everyone. I ended up ripping it in pieces. I usually only post simple cute pictures of the family on my private social media, but thinking back to my own experience is making me think about it a lot
Yeah, my dad would always display the ugliest photos of us. Like why does this man have my passport photo on his desk? He really took the extra copies from a passport renewal and decided this needs to be taped to his desk. Now I will admit I found it more annoying/funny that my parents loved our ugly pictures so much. But goodness, if this went up on social media? I would be so incredibly angry. Also I would be upset if they were telling the internet embarrassing stories about me. I would get frustrated whenever my mom would tell her coworkers embarrassing stories.
I remember being a 15yo and looking through baby pictures my gran had of me. I came across one of me and my sister in the bath and I was stood up so you could see everything. This was around 2010 so I had Facebook but she of course didn't know what the Internet was so it had never been uploaded. But even knowing it existed was too much for me and I ripped it to pieces. The idea that these days someone might post a picture like that to Instagram or Facebook where it might fall into the wrong hands is honestly terrifying. I had a friend from college post her two kids naked playing in the pool on her Facebook once. Made me feel ill. They weren't babies either, they were 4 and 2 I think? Or maybe 5 and 3. Either way, not young young. I wanted to talk to her about it but we weren't that close in school and I wasn't sure she'd take it seriously tbh.
I ask my youngest brother (7) if a picture of him makes him feel happy and if he thinks he looks nice in it before I actually save it to my phone. I also don’t ask questions about posting it or sending it. I’ll ask “is this an us picture or a people picture?”. It’s very funny to have him ask the questions back when he takes pics of me. Idk this might help you out.
I’m in my 40s, so I’ve been around on social media since early days. I wonder if part of this is because initially, most of us on FB only had a friends list that included family and IRL friends. These are the same people who we would not think twice about sending photos of our kids to at Christmas, or happily showing them our latest kid pictures when we see them in person. It was an easy way to keep out of state family and close friends in the loop with our growing family, and also feel connected to their family as they shared their own photos. I don’t think any of us would have guessed at that point that people’s friends lists would be largely made up of folks they never met in real life, or that anyone would ever make money sharing posts on social media. So, for us, what was normalized made sense, but as the face of social media dramatically changed, we didn’t always realize how much it was changing and how we needed to re-think our engagement online. When I compare the role of social media in the average person’s life 15 years ago to its role today… it’s VERY different! Unfortunately, we don’t always realize in the middle of things that our engagement with social media needs to change just as drastically.
I will never accept a friend request from someone I don’t know irl for this reason. Even if I come to “know” someone from a group or forum, I will not befriend someone whom I’m not actually friends with. My personal choice for my sanity and safety 🤷🏻♀️
Great points, I am a mom in my 40's and I still use social media the same way, private accounts with real family and friends. When I was a new mom, I used social media as way to conveniently keep in touch with family and share family photos etc.., that was my entire reason for having it at all. As my kids have gotten older, I post less and less and less because I noticed family and friends posting photos of us and they had public accounts, as well people taking a screen shot and reposting my pics, they meant no harm, just proud aunties etc... but it made me realize you can't really have privacy if you put things online.
I love the shift to the longer-form (and currently oh so popular) video essays on this channel, especially since they're done in such a considerate and sensible manner. Great job!
I think the rise of the "mommy blogger" is the really unfortunate result of a lack of systemic support for parents. There's a lot of nuance to the emotional and/or financial motivations behind it. This isn't to condone it, but I think it's important to consider why it happens. And these issues are of course only heightened by increased physical isolation from the pandemic.
I agree, plus a great way to make money and stay at home with your kids. Childcare is so expensive, I wonder when we are going to offer childcare to all, to allow more choice for moms who want to get back to the workforce.
I do think there's a big difference between women making content for other moms to create an online community around authentic motherhood and the "family vlogging" channels that are geared towards child audiences like the Ace family, et cetera who see them as their idols or #goals.
Its honestly the same thing people use to do to their children back in the day trying to force them into acting for money. Mom vlogging and family channels have been a thing since way before the pandemic. A lot of these people had channels before they had kids and saw how lucrative having kids was on RU-vid so they had kids to create a family channel.
@C MM Exactly. I doubt any reasonable person would argue that MLMs are anything but a predatory scam, but if you really think they remain prevalent because these women are just stupid or really naïve, you’re missing the main problem. People do “stupid” things when they’re desperate, and don’t think they have any other option. Even the comment about previous generations thinking children miners were no big deal, feels glib. These were desperate families that had no other options, and I can only imagine needed a narrative to relieve that guilt. I seriously doubt any wealthy families were sending their children into the mines as an alternative to summer camp. Women need options and support from society at large, or things won’t change.
I see this attitude with teen and tweens that nothing bad can happen to them in the internet and it freaks me out. They share their location 24/7, they make profiles with their real names and faces, they post their age, traumatic experiences, friends, break ups, schools… We need to bring internet safety back, stat.
Yessss the tweens!! Ppl aren’t really talking about them!! They themselves are over sharing their own lives toooo it’s not good at all! I’m in my 30s and While I was never an over sharer I’ve started to really stop sharing anything at all especially after watching the social dilemma documentary 😭 if the creators of these platforms don’t allow their own children to have social media then i feel like we should all be questioning how we interact with it.
Internet safety hasn't ever existed, really - we need to get some, stat. As a tween/teen I remember friends (okay, me) being groomed by grown adults. I'm hoping that's happening less these days, but I worry for these kids.
My son really wants a RU-vid channel and I keep telling him no and sometimes I think maybe I should let him but then I see this video and I stand by my choice. Thank you. :)
A compromise can be having a completely private channel, or just making the videos without posting them and saving them on the computer or on the cloud, so you can still encourage him being creative with making and editing videos
@@phosphenevision yes! My daughter makes videos, movies and video edits of her fave anime characters. Totally encourage all of that and she’s free to share directly with friends. But there’s no need to share with the world.
What if he got to have a channel without his face? He could do commentary on things he likes, etc. My nephew does that and it seems to have worked out as a compromise.
Maybe, let them make videos, but don't allow them to show their face, and don't let them give away their name. Like, if they love making art and wanna do art videos, let them do that. But limit how much time they spend doing it. Maybe limit it to 1 hr. a day, like with video games.
Before my husband and I had children we had a conversation about what boundaries we wanted to establish for them. We opted for no personal information (e.g. name, birthday, etc) as well as not showing faces. It was a little difficult to get our families on board they ultimately agreed to our terms. I am grateful for this decision. And I am glad our kids have the option to create their own internet identities.
I'm just an aunt and people have been weird about me not sharing anything about my nephew and nieces besides their gender and their ages. Nothing else gets discussed. Children can't consent so their stuff shouldn't be shared. To me it's really that easy. They can share their own information once they are old enough. My nephew is 19 now but still without consent nothing gets shared about him and I extend the same thing to any other adults in my life. I don't understand why it's so hard for some people to keep other people's privacy.
My husband and I have talked about this as we continue our family planning journey. We would like to minimize sharing images of our children through social media... instead we would like to set up a digital drive/ photo album where family and select friends can view them. We'll probably still take a million photos of our future children, but theres no reason the whole world needs to see them.
Honestly you need to be very careful with platforms like those, too. Some of those platforms are acquiring the rights to your pictures by you uploading them. They can also sometimes be hacked quite easily. It might not be the best idea to use a free platform, even.
Considering the kids of some of the first mommy bloggers are starting to become adults and are speaking out, I'm horrified for the stories to come. From these first kids alone, they talk about how awful it is to grow up and realize your mom was complaining about how hard it was to raise you to thousands of strangers on the internet. Can you imagine your worst moments as a kid getting blasted to a bunch of people you don't know for them to judge? I certainly can't. I already have trust issues with my mom about how she would gossip about me to her friends on the phone when I could overhear. I can't even comprehend what it must be like for those kids.
There definitely needs to be a consideration of kids privacy in the momosphere of the internet, I think it can be helpful for mothers/parents to share tips, ideas, challenges of their experiences, especially since it can be a very isolating experience. As a mom I can say it's the most challenging, exhausting, stressful endeavor I've ever taken on. You really don't want to do anything to damage or negatively impact your kids, you worry about them all the time, but you are only human and will make mistakes so sometimes I need supporting some of the mommy influencers share very helpful resources and great parenting ideas to try or just help you to feel less alone. I think the key is to find a balance of sharing your experience and perspective without over exposing your kids or forcing kids to make content for entertainment. I'm really so uninterested in watching other people's kids do anything. I really only pay attention to the adults perspective, recipe they share etc..I always skip through any kid focused part of a video.
This is such an important topic. I’m in my late 20s so I was in middle school around the time Facebook switched to allowing anyone 13+ on the platform and in high school when Instagram launched. I’ve deleted accounts and removed content from those days and I’m sure there’s still images of me as a minor out there from other people’s accounts. It makes me so uncomfortable to think about. I can’t even imagine kids these days whose whole lives have been put online by their family from even before birth.
Children can't consent. Do you honestly think they can tell the people who house, feed, and discipline them no? People are just way too afraid to let go of the paychecks they get from this...so family channels will never die
One of the family vloggers I've followed for years is making a whole series about their child's gender transition and it makes me so so so worried for them, safety and privacy-wise...
I am BEYOND glad to see that this subject is being more widely addressed and acknowledged. Children's lives are not meant to be broadcast to billions of strangers through a camera lense - like temper tantrums or moments of crying or needing comfort! By tracking their every move literally from the womb, we are robbing them of the true, pure experiences of childhood that are so personally intimate and special to us as people. Those moments we only have to ourselves.
Oh man and not to mention the AI implications around facial recognition and privacy. Companies like Clearview AI trained their facial recognition model based on billions of social media images, that are publicly available, talking about every shared image/growth stage for kids and adults. There's so much more at stake in addition to the child labor aspect.
I live within walking distance and have an annual pass to Disneyland. I see this all the time, this afternoon included. “Mommy influencers” making what should be a fun time at “The Happiest Place on Earth” a miserable experience for the children. Today, mommy and daughter were dressed in identical outfits accompanied by their “photographer”. The child was in tears. I’ve seen children not allowed to eat, play, or sit down because they might mess up their carefully-curated outfits. Once I saw a woman trying to wrangle three unhappy toddlers (in matching outfits, of course) into formation for that “perfect photo” in front of Minnie’s house. One kept pulling off her mouse ears, one was crying, and one was trying to get away. It was funny yet sad. And it’s getting more and more common. Camera on for reactions: “Hey, kids, we’re going to Disneyland!” “Yay!” Camera off: “Now leave mommy alone while I shop Etsy for matching outfits…”
As a parent of two young children (2 and 4) I find content that includes children incredibly uncomfortable to watch. I can understand filming a video with audible children in the background, getting anything done with children in the house can be quite the challenge. But building your content around your children seems like such a bad idea to me. I always wonder what goes on behind the scenes as well. Imagine disciplining a child for not wanting to play because the content needs to go up before a certain deadline. It all seems very backwards to me.
As a mom of two, I really appreciate this video! 1. I posted my first child on my personal Facebook page years ago - until I experienced domestic abuse and was completely alone and isolated, despite having Facebook. It made me question my whole reality and who I was connected to. I deleted all the pics I’d ever posted. 2. Often abuse happens by people we know. Several of my siblings and myself had experienced inappropriate conduct with family members at a young age by people close to or in our family. So the argument that one shares photos privately on Facebook to friends and family is not really valid or safe to me. Just because someone is family doesn’t mean they need a relationship with one’s child. 3. I watched my nieces grow up online and there were definitely things they did not want shared about them and the identity and self esteem issues resulting from that sharing are real. 4. My preteen nieces are obsessed with TikTok and I have seen several inappropriate videos of them with comments from older people - it’s heartbreaking and they are on a path that typically results in drug abuse or teen pregnancy. 5. I want my children to decide what their online presence should be…or decide if they even want one. 6. I don’t want an algorithm to create a profile of how to sell stuff to my children and already know how to persuade them to take action. 7. I did marketing for big energy companies in the past and would write 20 page reports on target clients with all the info needed to close multi million dollar deals - I was paid to create profiles about people and how to influence their behavior - I would extract info from social media all the time. Note - I am not proud of that work and now focus on serving and helping other moms….but all in all I don’t think children should be posted on the internet. It’s not safe, respectful, needed, or ethical. I get it though - moms want connection, they want to be seen, they want validation - and you don’t know what you don’t know, until you know - so videos like this are helpful and needed - awareness creates change - so thank you.
For context: I have 4 (now adult) children - two step & two I birthed. My step-kids themselves have children, so effectively I'm a grandparent. My kids do not - and likely will not. Of course childless people get to voice their opinions about issues surrounding children!! We were all children once! Adults who aren't parents may still be aunts & uncles or have close friends with children. Children are an important part of society and I think it's important everyone considers them & supports them. Children benefit from healthy, appropriate relationships with friends, caregivers, educators, and mentors of all ages.
Hi Chelsea, well done on the way you mentioned the 'slutwalk' article. Brava to you about being open about past opinions and your state of mind at the time. We are not always consistent and we make mistakes. Owning up to it is hard. Well done!
I rarely post on RU-vid but just wanted to say thank you for one of the most considered, thoughtful, and thought-provoking videos I have seen in a long time. I have seen people I care about mock, rant about, or document embarrassing things their children do and it hurts me to see it and know those children have no idea what is going on online about them. There are reasons that there were originally age limits on social media accounts. But this doesn't seem to have seeped into today's social media culture about why this was and why limiting exposure to social media is protective for children and young people. Thank you for a video that will stick with me for a while!
You are so right on every count, Chelsea. I began following the vlog of a family living in a part of Europe we were moving to - they had a cute little baby and made great content. which we found extremely useful. Four years on, I've realised how that cute little kid has become the 'star' of their vlogs. She's basically earning them a living aged 5. I watched a vlog a few days ago after not bothering for a while and realised how precocious this little girl has become ... talking confidently into the camera like her parents. She has effectively become an unpaid performer. It saddened me to see it.
I remember watching a colandsav RU-vid video where they "pranked" their 7 year old (ish) daughter telling her that they had had to get rid of her dog and that she'd never see him again. Obviously she was seriously distraught. I could not believe that parents would bully and emotionally traumatize their child just for views. I never watched another of their videos.
I saw a peice of a recorded livestream once in a similar video criticizing RU-vid family channels that showed a couple of younger teens who had been on a popular daily vlog family channel. They were answering the question "what's your favorite movie?" And they both said *The Truman Show.* That says a lot to me.
Thanks for posting this. I rarely post things about my 1 year old daughter for many of the reasons you mentioned. I didn’t grow up with parents who had social media accounts but I did have a grandparent who wrote about me a lot in a local newspaper when I was little and it always made me feel overexposed. I don’t ever want my daughter to feel that way so we generally keep her off the internet.
I also want to add that as a parent, I posted just about 4 or 5 photos of my kids over the years because my partner and I really try to avoid it. Whenever I did post I got 300% more attention than all my other posts. So any parent knows this, it's really hard not to know it. I mean, the temptation to use your kids in that manner is huge on parents for sure.
This is a great topic. I used to have FB and Insta and having my kids during that time I posted because I moved and family and friends liked seeing my kids growing up. However, during Covid and with the passing of my dad I started seeing the toxicity of social media more and more, and started really disliking the fakeness of it all. I also hated seeing people having parties during lockdown, these people did not stop “working” they kept posting and putting people at risk. Also my kids would ask me every time I took a photo if I was gonna post it. I started seeing everything you are talking about and I have been off social media for over a year. No regrets.
Have you read Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport? It nailed a lot of things that resonated with me ... while I still take in RU-vid, I’ve gone off other channels and try to keep to myself. Try 😂
Thank you for talking about this, while it's a hard topic to consider, it's an important one. There are things that my parents share that really bother me and my sibling. It's gotten us into arguments with my mom because she insists on uploading photos that we don't want to be share, resulting in a no photo policy with her and others. Family channels have really disturbed me, and there are some cases that should create new laws to protect children. Parents don't like to teach kids about consent or saying no, which makes them really vulnerable to being taken advantage of by parents who monetize this. This is a really nice video and can't wait to see more.
As a young adult, my mom and I are in the same situation. She shares both current and older photos of me when I was a kid, and I tell her not to post those. She still does and it makes for a lot of confusing conversations: Some casual viewers on fb think her child is still that [younger] age, some who I later meet in person with my mom make crazy personal comments like “you looked so cute in your Jasmine from Aladdin costume” - I would then think back to when I dressed in a Jasmine costume when I was 5 YEARS OLD. like uh, my moms CURRENT boss does need to see that and then tell me they saw it. Worst photos personally for me are pool or bath time photos. Obvi bath time photos were when I was very young, but those original photos are print copies in a scrapbook, and now they are immortalized on the internet…….are any of us surprised that a lot of people have anxiety connected to digital stuff
Can we also acknowledge that this was a well written rant?! 😌 She painted a clear picture of 22 yo Chelsea in the intro and put it all together in the end. I could taste the analogy 👌🏾
I think this is a great topic to cover. I would have loved a guest employment lawyer or family lawyer. I think that this issue will require more regulation in a few years. I think someone with a different expertise would be great for a part 2… if you are brave enough to tackle this topic again 👀
One of my favorite videos you’ve put out. Thank you for this. As someone who is your age and considered being child-free by choice myself, your viewpoint resonates with me. I think many who choose not to have children often do so because they care a great deal about kids and actually put a lot of thought into the decision. At least in my experience, people without children of their own often enjoy working with or being around kids…and it’s because of that experience they also recognize the magnitude of raising them and what it takes to be a stable, loving, engaged parent. It’s a tremendous responsibility, and as a former child welfare worker…I can say with confidence that many people who don’t consider just how big of a responsibility it is are the ones who tend have lots of of children they can’t adequately care for. Meanwhile, people who would be exceptional parents shy away from having any at all. When I was pregnant, I found a family vlogging channel on RU-vid and fantasized about life as a parent with my son to be as I watched them do everything from mundane Costco trips to fun family vacations. After giving birth, I discovered a mommy vlogger channel on RU-vid while I was in the thick of new motherhood (and quarantine). What she shared resonated with the experiences I was going through at the time, and it was helpful to feel like I wasn’t alone (even though I very much was, at least in a physical sense…2020 was a trying year to have a baby). However, as I continued watching the content she created and looked back on the family vlog I’d been watching previously, I started having conflicting feelings about them putting their kids’ faces, names, and much of their lives out there for anyone to see. It made me very uncomfortable at the thought of plastering my own child all over the internet in that way, and I have since adopted a very conservative approach to sharing my son online. I deleted early posts I made that didn’t take his privacy into consideration. I’ve all but gotten rid of Instagram anyways and don’t use Facebook anymore other than for the Marketplace feature. I have made a few TikToks about motherhood without compromising his safety or revealing his identity (for a private audience of 10 whole followers, all of whom are personal friends I actually know in real life, and/or family). I guess it’s one thing if your kids are old enough to consent to being on camera, but even then…they probably can’t fully grasp the ramifications of it long-term. You made another video that hit home with me recently about MLMs…I unfortunately was sucked into one of those in a rough patch of my life in 2017…there’s a year and a half of my life I’ll never get back. Our uplines encouraged us to overshare EVERYTHING, and thankfully I didn’t have my son back then, or he would have been plastered all over social media and used to grow my following/sell the products. I think the fact that I share so little now has to do with me “recovering” from putting so much of myself out there when I was shilling for the company I was distributing for. I would love to see more vloggers and influencers respect their kids’ privacy, but unfortunately it’s a trend that doesn’t look like it’s going away any time soon. Seems like some are maybe coming around or have just always had that boundary, but I am disheartened at the thought it will likely continue for a long time before anything is really done to stop it.
My kids are at the age where I will ask them before taking a photo. Before I send it I tell them “I’d like to text this to your grandparents. Is that ok?” And if they say no, I don’t. If they say they don’t want a photo now, then we don’t take a photo. It’s important for them to know they have agency over how their image is taken/used.
This is such a great point. Especially the fact that millennials are the first generation of parents to have kids with technology and internet from birth. We grew up without all of this and now it’s our whole life. You make me re-think about posting my baby. I used to do it a lot because they are my first baby and COVID prevented us from seeing any family when they were born. But now. I thinks it’s definitely time to rethink posting without consent. Especially as a foster parent. We can’t post kids online at all. Thanks for this.
As a professional writer myself, I thought the story of how you got your first writing job was interesting. You're very lucky writing for free turned into any sort of paid work, let alone a salaried staff position. Usually once a company gets an idea that you're willing to write for free, they always expect free content! I would normally advise people to never write for free, unless there are just no other places willing to publish your work.
Absolutely agree with every thought expressed in this video and so glad someone is bringing it up. I - personally - already find the mommy blogging culture kind of toxic in various aspects. But the increasing involvement of children in a lot of influencers’ content (not only mommy bloggers) takes this cringe feeling up several notches. It goes so far that i cannot even in good consciousness consume content by people anymore that feature their children on social media too much. This goes especially for influencers and content creators whose content basically consists of showing their every day life. So once they get children they kind of HAVE to include them in their content OR change their whole content strategy if not their whole career. It is sad, but every time i see a content creator i like get pregnant i think „oh there goes another one..“. Just recently I saw a food blogger send life footage from the hospital room where her prematurely born son struggled for his life in an incubator. Had to press the unfollow button. Just as we as a (global) society started the conversation about the spread of misinformation through social media far too late because in the early stages of the hype we were not capable to fully grasp the consequences of our online behavior this is definitely also a topic we should start to better understand and discuss rather sooner than later.
I'm so glad you're speaking out about this. It's definitely a subject there needs to be some rules around. I can't even imagine what it's going to be like for these kids when they grow up and find all this garbage content on the internet about them.
Thank you for talking about this! I'm also child free by choice but ive grown up around children (13 nieces/nephews) and I've always felt a uncomfortable with images of children I see from family and friends. Once a family member sent me a picture they found hilarious of their kid doing something that was probably very embarrassing to the child. I asked if the child had consented to that being shared and they looked at me like i'd grown a second head. My mother was the type that would tell me when i messed up, "its okay no one will know" and then i'd catch her talking to her friends about it and laughing. It broke my trust and created a rift between my mother and I that was never truely repaired. I can only imagine getting to be an adult (or even a teen) and realizing every embarrassing thing you've ever done has been uploaded to the internet for friends and family to laugh at. Once something is on the internet its out there for ever, you can take it down but you don't know when it might surface again. I just feel its really unfair to the future adult your child will be to spreed all this to the winds without even ASKING. (I don't think that children under a certain age could even consent if asked but thats a different can of worms)
I am very careful with my kiddo on social media. I only use her first initial. And I lock any pictures or video I share to only my friends. I had one video during the last election cycle that I had failed to do this with that showed her 3y/o self chanting "Everyone deserves a vote!" (She'd just watched a kids show about voting and her daddy is a political scientist.) Someone found it and shared it. As soon as I realized it, it was locked down. My kid is a ham and loves to be the center of attention, but until she is a bit older and has a greater understanding of what exposure means, only my friends and family will see her glorious little star.
Children wouldn't be able to understand the consequences of having their life online, and therefore I doubt they are able to give informed consent. It makes me uncomfortable seeing how much parents share online about their kids, particularly where it is because of sponsorship. Eta: this reminds me of a couple years ago when Gwyneth Paltrow thought she had a right to share a picture of her daughter, and her daughter called Gwyneth out for not having permission to post the picture.
My friend is a paralegal and I keep telling her to go to Law school and start defending kids whose parents used them in their social media exploits. The first of those kids are starting to become adults, and the ones who decide that they weren't ok with their parents exposing their entire private childhood for money are going to have a huge cases on their hands. No one has really written the book on how to go about those cases, and there is going to be a huge market for it!!!
Thank you for this video. My cousin is actually thinking about starting a RU-vid channel for her 5 years old daughter and I will send the link to her. Its funny how in westernized countries we have this disgust for child labout, when yet there are well known brands hiring children labourers all over the world in factories
Fantastic video and something that needs to be discussed more. Also, you don’t have to want kids or have kids to believe that children should have rights since kids are human beings, just like adults.
Agreed. I truly think legal protections around the rights of children need to catch up to the digital age. Children should be protected because they can’t consent. Unfortunately not all adults take the responsibility for protecting children seriously, if at all, so hopefully awareness of these issues and legal protections will help.
I'm a mom, and I don't think one needs to be a parent to notice, comment on, and be concerned about these kids whose lives are being thrown up for public consumption. When my brother and I were young (13 and 10) , our parents wrote a book about our family. It was lighthearted and funny, but it was about US. They'd promised we'd have a family discussion about it before they sent it to their publisher, but that never happened. The book sold well and the publisher sent them on a pretty big publicity tour. Because it was summer and we were out of school, we had to go with them. So we were put on camera, placed in front of microphones at radio stations, and interviewed by newspaper and magazine entertainment reporters. At the time, it was kind of exciting. But it was also hugely embarrassing. We lived in a small town and everyone knew us. My dad worked as an op-ed reporter for a pretty big newspaper and he continued to write about us well into adulthood. Until my brother and I kindly but firmly told him to stop. Something we didn't have the ability to do before. I can't imagine what would've happened if social media had been around in those days. (For one thing, I would have needed even more therapy than I already did. ) People like the Martins are especially heinous. Their kids don't know it's "a show". How anyone "pranking" their kids is considered entertainment is beyond me. 😞
Something I just thought of: similar to how kids who were beat as children grew to think it was a normal and necessary part of growing up despite all of the evidence proving how harmful it is, I fear that kids from this generation who have been on camera since they were born will think it is normal and beneficial and won’t be able to recognize any of the harmful impacts it has had on them and their families. What do you guys think?
I’ve already seen it in my 15 yo nephew and his friends. They have no sense of public/private/intimate. Their inner world is commingled with what is “posting material”. It’s pretty sad.
I think this is a heavily cultural issue. In Germany, its considered transgressive to show your kid's face on Facebook. Though I don't know about the legal situation and I'm pretty sure we also have kidfluencers or at least teenfluencers.
I was a child model for toys for tykes. It was for 2 years and my parents saved that initial payment into an account just for me + used residuals for our daily living (usually to help with going to visit my parents down south). I can appreciate this paradigm of parenting
As a mom of 2 (now 22 and 18), I succumbed to posting photos of them doing things (homeschooling) on facebook. Looking back, i have to confess, it was mostly about me and how unique our life was/justifying an oft-criticized and rarely understood way of education. Not great and definitely not fair to them. When they were 12 and 8 we had a talk about it and they requested that I ask them before posting any pics. And, with a very few exceptions, I have held to that and, hopefully, have a better relationship with them as adults. I regret even the comparatively scant posting from their young years. I was a baby on social media at that time and my behavior reflected my immaturity.
I used to regularly post pics on fb of my kids. It was always private / set to friends only. However I began to change my mind and removed or set the privacy to only me for almost everything. Your video articulates why I did this. I still post the occasional pic but with their permission. They are 10 and 13 so I believe they are old enough. It is generally one or two photos a year. After some time I then lock down the privacy on them.
I’ve seen a few people do kids on camera right- the kids look comfortable, they’re hanging out on set- telling people about what they want to share, and it’s not invading their personal life. But then you see other ones that are really and truly child abuse being monetized. I’m so glad there are people ( like you) drawing attention to these issues.
Very thoughtful video Chelsea. My niece supports her family with a "mommy vlogger" youtube channel, and while she has set fairly strict limitations on what she will post (no crying or temper tantrums, no "discipline" problems or embarassing moments) I still worry about the violation of their privacy and the commodification of their lives as "brands."
In some ways that seems better. However, what kind of standards does that set for other parents? "My kids cry and tantrum, they must be awful children. " or what about the pretty and cute reputation these children could get? "But you are so adorable on your channel!" The whole thing is so strange.
I am so glad my parents didn't have social media to share all of my childhood online and I think kids today should have the right to not be online before they can even understand what that means. I also wonder what kind of mental health effects family channels will have on children as they grow older.
This is why i unsubscribed from several RU-vidrs as soon as they started having children. Colleen Ballinger, already established RU-vidr and millionaire, used to upload a variety of content on her main channel before she got pregnant and after she started having kids she became essentially a mommy vlogger, documenting her kids all day long and sharing private information about them while making bank per month. These people will film EVERYTHING; ultrasounds, pregnancy tests, doctor's appointments, births, baby room decorations, babies having colic, growing teeth, taking their first steps etc all under the pretense of "footage that they can have when they're older" while monetizing each video with a picture of the kid on the thumbnail. The faces of those kids are all over twitter and instagram, as fans dedicate FAN accounts to them, maybe they are fans maybe they are not. Everyone can be on the internet and sometimes some people don't have the best intentions while watching this type of content. I wish it could be regulated somehow by RU-vid guidelines. It's getting out of hand.
As both a parent and a grandparent, I am so glad that you are addressing this. To me this is just totally exploitative and should be regulated asap! Furthermore I believe that parents are not considering that these practices can have an ongoing impact on their children’s future! Nothing disappears from the internet people! .
This was a great video, and something I'm sure many young parent (such as myself) think about a lot. Before becoming a mother, my google searches led my RU-vid recommendation to fill with 'mommy vloggers' and 'family channels'. Despite the issues surrounding these types of content, especially those pertaining to children, as highlighted in this video, I wanted to mention there was something very inspiring and empowering about seeing regular mothers and homemakers make a living out of what is historically unpaid work. I don't particularly enjoy cleaning, cooking or organizing videos, but seeing so many women get hundreds of thousands of views for their everyday, unpaid labor, and thus generate income, is commendable, in my opinion.
Yes I also enjoy the cooking, cleaning, organizing type of videos! But no kids! The RU-vidrs usually have kids but they never post them on the internet.
This is so true.All the family vloggers need to realize this as well.Many of these vlogger parents dont really understand the actual effect or consequence of strutting their children on youtube or insta or tiki tok or whatever mostly because they themselves are not old enough or mature enough.This is a lucrative profession yes but this has to stop.It really is child abuse
I used to watch a lot of sailing channels and I noticed an unsettling trend starting in 2017. It seemed like every sailing on youtube that had any good amount of following starting having children all together. These were people of different ages, life stages, cultures and backgrounds who had only one thing in common; a steady youtube following. I had suspicions that these channels were having babies to boost views. Although I still feel this way I really hope it wasn't the case.
Yes! Thank you for your well researched and thoughtful insight. Everything about this is so important. And please don’t let the world discourage you from advocating for children regardless of your parental status. The fact that we were all once children gives us street cred when it comes to matters of exploitation in all its forms.
I follow a couple of disability focused Instagram accounts (all adults, some personal friends) and as a consequence I've come across some accounts on my explore page focused on families with a disabled child and they disturbed me deeply. Sharing very intensely personal medical information, posting photos of the children crying, sick, or in pain, and honestly just talking about these children who 1000% cannot consent to any of it in really degrading ways. And all the comments are talking about how brave the parents are for sharing their struggle which just makes me very uncomfortable and the whole thing seems extremely exploitative to very vulnerable person. And we've already seen some of the possible consequences of this stuff with the Myka Stauffer situation. I think it's awesome that people are talking about disability more but there's a clear difference to me in adults sharing stories about their life and a parent posting a picture of their child going into surgery without them knowing or understanding any of it. As someone who had their share of issues as a kid it really messes with me to imagine my parents sharing such personal information with strangers when I was struggling so much. I'm glad I had at least some level of privacy growing up but it's very frustrating to see these parents completely throwing that away.
I watched one of the videos Myka Stauffers on adoption process and it was weird how she and her husband talked about adopting a disabled child. I found it wasn’t about what was best for the child! Reflecting back it was predictable from that episode that they wasn’t doing for the child benefit it was just for views and likes.
As someone who watches documentaries on psychopaths, pedophilia, sociopaths, etc…I’m scared for these children. I hear what these predators are thinking and watching behind closed doors. Parents should not be allowed to monetize posts with their children in it. But I know authorities probably won’t do much about it since it brings in so much money for the economy exploiting children.
I AM SO HERE FOR THIS. This is a major problem, and we need to keep pressuring platforms like youtube, Instagram, and our government to do something to protect kids.
The last 2 years or so I have seen some of the "mom YT channels" I follow, severely restrict the sharing of their children in their vids. Some have stopped totally and in others you just get glimpses of them playing, homeschooling etc. And mostly from the back. A lot of the children are getting to an age in which they probably don't like to be on camera anymore and then I applaud their parents for taking the choice of their kids in stride and not showing their kids anymore. Sometimes you still get glimpses but that is to be expected in a family. Sometimes the moms talk about their children but I find that they are really mindful of what they say about them. They try to be good at respecting their children's privacy and that is something I do applaud. And for some vids the kids do want to be in the vid because they are taste testing candies etc. At the time we might have looked strange at Carice van Houten when she put an emoiji or sticker on her sons face in insta photo's but the fact that she in that way said: I might be famous and have chosen the acting profession my son did not, he deserves his privacy is something to applaud. In a way she was ahead of the crowd.
Always a little sobering to remember this generation is basically on the cutting edge of an incredible shift in the history of humanity, as far as technology and global connectivity goes. I feel like we’ll be looked back on in distance and thought like we look to pilgrims and medieval ages now
My 9 year old is grateful that I never posted any photo or video or anything private about her online. She knows that if and when she will have an online presence, it will be of her own choosing.
Something that rubbed me the wrong way is the underlying belief in the video that bad views & practices are a product of their time. No, that's not true. Like, sending children to work in a coal mine WAS seen as bad... that's why labor laws were made back then. Low income families had no protection from child exploitation. Just because it happened commonly didn't mean it was widely accepted. People operating in their environment under oppressive rule is coercion, not acceptance. You say your old articles were from a less woke time....but if that's true why were you proto-canceled? Clearly a large swath of folks did not buy into the anti-wokeness "of the time"... Claiming that bad views or practices were "a product of its time" ignores all the folks who fought against them. It's a statement that prioritizes the views of the oppressor, and ignores the actions and views of the oppressed. Other than that, great video getting into the details of child labor in the influencer sphere!
It was NOT always seen as bad. That mindset was the result of progress. School, for centuries was seen as not needed, and so wasn't a right. No education AND working was VERY normal for a long, long, looooooooong time. There were simply no options. School was for the wealthy. Mobility didn't exist. Those who "fought against" this stuff were usually people with enough money to have options, but they didn't advocate for social help for others to have options. Did they mean it, or was it performative? No one sent their kids to the mines for fun. They didn't have options. In case you are unaware, birth control is recent, and is still under fire and can be challenging to access. What do you think it was like a century ago? Remember this: In a century from now, a lot of the stuff we see as progressive today will see seen as regressive. At the time she's talking about for proto-canceling, people would internet-dogpile over everything from saying women wouldn't have sex to backing women's sexual liberation. I dealt with people calling me out for being a whore at the time she was dealing with people calling her out for shaming women. The people who were "proto-cancelled" were those whose calling-out was large enough. Some of the people who were wrong, like her, realized they were wrong, and some of those who weren't wrong, like me, told the world to fuck off. Shit was flung both ways as people were finding their footing.
@@Author.Noelle.Alexandria Teaching chidlren to read started in protestant Europe from the 1500s, and before industrialisation. People needed to learn to read (including girls!) so they could read the bible and develop a relationsihp with God.
Thank you so much for talking about this. This is so so important and frankly it worries me the degree to which we’re all just expected to consent to having our lives online all the time in order to communicate long distance with friends, help advertise our employer’s business, and so on. Adults have less say than we think we do and less ability to freely consent. So much more so with children.
Thank you for covering this topic in such a thoughtful manner. I have so many concerns for these kids. The thought of someone putting me on display like this as a child is a nightmare. I recall we didn’t even like it when our parents showed copies of our school photos to friends or family in the 80s and 90s. We all had a strong sense of wanting to control how and when images or video of us was shared. I hate that young kids these days have lost any sense of ownership over their own image.
This is a really interesting discussion. I'm a parent who posts the occasional picture of her child on social media, and I definitely thought through the 'should I obscure her face' and made a decision not to. I still think I won't. These conversations are important to have, though, especially in regards to private, sensitive information and earning money from dishing it out.
